The
Chat-tanagers are a small family of understory passerines found only on
Hispaniola in the Caribbean. There are two chat-tanagers in genusCalyptophilus — Eastern Chat-Tanager(left, in a fine Murray Lord photo) and Western Chat-Tanager C. tertius— that are undergrowth skulkers on Hispaniola.

This
is a recently proposed bird Family. An extensive analysis of the
relationships of nine-primaried passerines (tanagers, New World
warblers, sparrows, buntings, etc.) by Barker et al. (2013) found
evidence of evolutionary sets of "tanagers" that arose on islands in
the Caribbean. Indeed, those authors even went so far as to propose
four new families from this radiation [Spindalidae, Nesospingidae,
Phaenicophilidae, Calyptophilidae]. Initially cautious, I placed these
sets together in 2014 in just one family. Now, following Winkler et al.
(2016), I've elevated three groups as Families, including the
Chat-tanagers as the Calyptophilidae.

The
Chat-Tanagers diverged from other groups about 10-12 million years ago
(Barker et al. 2013), but their placement in the phylogeny is not truly
certain. In the "species tree" published by Barker et al. (2013) showed
them as a sister group to the other Caribbean lineages, although with
"weak support." We need further molecular research to fully document
their true relationships. And despite the English names we use, these
are not tanager. Yet most of them have been called
"tanagers" in the past, and so we can continue to do so. We just need
to recognize that there are many birds called "tanagers" that are now
classified in other families (to use just one example, Scarlet, Summer,
and Western Tanagers, familiar to North American birders, are actually
in the cardinal/grosbeak family Cardinalidae).

It
is usually much easier to hear the distinctive vocalizations of a
chat-tanager than it is to see or photograph one. The morning I had
arranged to search for a Eastern Chat-tanager with local guides was
cold. After driving an hour in a 4-wheel-drive jeep on extremely rough
roads, and crossing several rushing mountain streams enroute, we
arrived at dawn inside a cloud forest at 1200m (about 4000') elevation
in Cachote Reserve. Fog was thick above us, and water constantly
dripped from the ferns and mosses that cloaked everything. We could
hear a chat-tanager at dawn — and eventually located three over the
morning — but had only a brief glimpse of the first one. Several hours
later, deep down a dark ravine, we briefly encountered another close
enough to get off a photo (below). Even at that the chat-tanager
remained half-hidden, but fortunately one can see the
species-diagnostic yellow eye-ring in the shot.

Bibliographic note:
There is no "family book" per se. The species in this set have been
previously covered in books on tanagers, such as Islet & Isler
(1987), or the applicable chapters on "warblers" or "tanagers" in the Handbook of the Birds of the World series.